Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin
The 1964 vote was extremely close. I believe in 1968 or 1969, the same factions remained. Future Senator Trent Lott on one side and future President of CNN, Tom Johnson led the other. The anti-segregation measure passed supposedly by single digits.
I had the fortune to visit with an alumnus who had been at every Grand Chapter since sometime in the 1950s (this was back in 2002, I'm sure he has since passed).
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I found this...
https://www.sigmanucornell.org/public7.asp
A good amount on the topic. The Sigma Nu chapter at Cornell got a "Waiver with Honor" for the membership policies in 1962. It talks about Efforts to remove the policies at the 1962, 1964 and 1966 Grand Chapters and "Finally, at the 43rd Grand Chapter in Denver in 1968, restrictive membership qualifications were removed from the Law by a nearly unanimous vote."
The fact that it was nearly a unanimous vote surprises me, but given that it probably required more than a majority to change this (2/3 or 3/4) it actually passing might have been a nearly unanimous vote, or the delegates on the "keep" side might have seen they were going to lose in a preliminary vote and decided to vote in favor for the unity of the Fraternity.
So I have 1968 as the year.
I'll change the entry to
In response to the national fraternity's segregationist membership policies, the fraternity went local in 1963, becoming Sigma Nu Delta. The national fraternity's bylaws were changed at the 1968 Grand Chapter[1], and in 1984 the fraternity reaffiliated with the national.
with the [1] being the ref to the Cornell Sigma Nu page.
Look good?